The most wanted mare in Equestria, Twilight Sparkle is the greatest thief in the world. As she follows in the hoofsteps of her grandmother, she's joined by friends and chased by family, all while trying to make a few bits!

After being invited to compete in Equestria's most prestigious creative writing competition, Twilight finds herself pitted against the world's greatest authors. The only problem: she has no idea how to write a story.

Twilight is invited to Canterlot to compete with some of the greatest magicians in the world for the Moonstone Cup, a prestigious award for the most powerful and skillful magicians, unicorn and otherwise. Can she win? What sort of competition will she face?

My take on Twilight's ease on banishing would be the fact that she is unnaturally good at any type of magic she applies to (Partially because magic itself is her talent, mostly because magic, and knowledge, are her passion)

51566Well, I plan to get into it in the story later on, but specifically because not only is magic specifically her talent, but she's the Element of Magic. She has the potential to make all magic basically bend to her will. Making magic... y'know, stop is just one aspect of that.

Maybe it was just that she won with a easily overcome lulluby spell? I mean, to win with a spell like that would be pretty unexpected, and genius. And easily avoided if her opponent had seen it coming.

I've been reading along with this fic and I'm rather intrigued. I like many of the original characters so far and how things are proceeding. The contests have been pretty interesting too, showing a lot of variety and thoughtfulness.

I like how Twilight has mostly been using magic that was shown through the series but I get the feeling that she'll be pulling out new spells before long. I'm just hoping that it's not too outrageous and that she doesn't become mega powerful too quickly. Having her struggle is far more interesting than having her blow through the competition.

Just stumbled across this story and wanted to tell you how much I'm enjoying it. You have managed to write one of the best Twilight's that I have the pleasure of seeing; keeping her in character while also showing off just BAMF she can be. Quite a few stories seem to utterly forget just how capable she can be, both in raw power but also from the sheer amount of knowledge tucked away in that skull of hers.

...And I'll admit it's nice to see a story with Twilight making use of said knowledge as well instead of using the blunt hammer approach. I also find Twilight's complete ignorance when it comes to how OP she's capable of being in comparison to some of the other contestants amusing.

The cultural elements that you've added with the different races and the fact that the various things that the mane six have done have spread across Equestria, if mostly rumors also help to really make this story a treat. Along with the well written OCs. Thanks for all of the hard work!

So! Just in case there's anyone out there who still cares, I have not given up on this/quit writing/joined a monastery/died. The editing turned out to be interminable and most of my free time of late has gone to Very Serious Things Indeed and not to ponying pony. I'm planning to have the edited chapters up this week and chapter 7 sometime next week.

Hmm. Either Trixie is much tougher than I thought, or Twilight needs to get her act together. She nearly lost that one, and had no strategy going in.

Come to think of it, Twi hasn't been doing any real planning at all- just reacting and duplicating tricks she's seen. Big mistake. Twilight is a great researcher and can learn new spells at the drop of a hat. (Heck, just seeing one used seems to be enough)

She needs to find out who she is facing, and what their strengths are. Then learn a trick or two specifically to combat them, and come up with a strategy before going in to the battle.

Her skill is magic- she can learn any spell. She should use that.

I suspect she's going to need to step it up a notch, since she's not playing in the sandpit anymore...

Twilight Sparkle, for all her skill, is not a pony suited for combat, having lived a very sheltered life and rarely exploring beyond her current interests or topic of study.

In the last two fights this has come against her with Trixie only losing due to her anger and possibly developing hatred for Twilight making her push herself too far in an effort to HURT Twilight, and the cultural mis-understanding leading Twilight to learn just how "Special" (Can be read: Dangerous) other people from all over feel and think she is, something she didn't want to think about or admit to herself.

This part dosen't having anything to do with the fic unless the author wants it to but the latest episode starring the children of the Cakes (if they can be taken as examples of normal pony development), may explain why Twilight in Lesson Zero was so scared of Magic Kindergarden. She was scared because when she went she was "underdeveloped" magically and had trouble with or couldn't use her magic for things the other kindergardeners (who probably teased her mercilessly) could already easily do.

Which also may explain why she seems willfully ignorant about how powerful she is sometimes, simply put, she doesn't want to be different.

As far as trying to hurt Twilight, Trixie (being an experienced showmare) is quite good at controlling her power and keeping her head in front of an audience. She wasn't about to blow her chance to move on to the next round by flat-out injuring Twilight and violating the rules.

Other than that, your post is basically all true. Twilight's been getting hammered since even before the tournament started with expectations and other ponies' ideas of her. In "Boast Busters", she was uncomfortable enough at the thought of being seen as "bragging" like Trixie that she hid her power completely until she had no choice. She read up on the competition in the library but really didn't have much idea how to go about the actual mechanics of competition.

Additionally, consider that Princess Celestia is her teacher. The Princess knows how powerful Twilight really is, and we know that at least part of her instruction was to help Twilight get her power under control. How and what did she help Twilight control?

Interesting fight scene. It almost looked like Twilight was about to lose there for a second. Although i was hoping Trixie would have used some serious illusion spells, and i love illusion spells. Anyway, awesome chapter, i can see Najstariot isn't so happy and i'm eager to see where this goes.

Awesome battle Twilight's struggling more and more with her opponents, I can't wait to see what she'll have to face in the coming battles. I wonder how Trixie is gonna cope with her loss. She was so close to winning, too.